She's here...

After months of talking about it (or years really), I picked Paula up at the airport yesterday afternoon. She's going to spend two weeks being J's roommate - good thing we got that sleeping thing sorted out and most nights J sleeps through the night now!


J is in heaven...not only is there someone else to play with, the new person reads to her too!

We're excited about all the adventures we're going to have in the next few days...and there's only three more work days before Christmas holidays! Yay!!!

Sidney and goodbye to Edna

Now that all the wedding festivities are over, it's time to start saying goodbye :(

Hiromi left us on Sunday morning and I had to say goodbye to Edna this morning....But not before Edna wowed us with her guacamole...okay, so she didn't make it this morning, she make it last week, but oh my goodness was it ever YUMMY!!! We gave her a hard time because she said she only makes food with a microwave and we don't have one...but I guess you don't really need one to make guacamole!


Yesterday we went to Sidney to do some book browsing (those of you who know about my book and yarn addictions will be amazed to hear I went into a few bookstores and one yarn store and I bought NO books and NO yarn!)...we did take everyone to Rogers...somehow in their trip to Victoria on Sunday, they all missed the yummy chocolate store...mmmmm....


And now reality sets in again...

That's all.

Sarah and her mom are here now too...

That's everyone...for now...

So far this visit has been great - and involved a lot of food! Hiromi and Edna were most interested in the salmon we had for dinner the other night...as soon as it came off the barbecue and before I'd even opened the foil, they were sniffing it to see what it smelled like.

Now that we can see it, does it look okay to eat?

Tonight we had take-out sushi with beautiful lacquered chopsticks Hiromi brought for us from Japan.



Then we took in the Celebration of Light (Symphony of Fire?!) from one of the little parks in Kits. The people with the balcony next to the park who usually play the radio really loud so that everyone could hear it weren't home last night, so we just got to see the fireworks without the accompanying music.

look at my lovely quadruple chins

Sarah, Pauline and Hiromi

Tired ladies: Sarah, Hiromi, Pauline and Edna

Hiromi's here too!

and we had other visitors last night....

Our deck is a pleasant place to spend the evening and last night there was a bit of a breeze, so it was even better.

As we were sitting around the table chatting, the tree at the end of the deck started to shake and rattle...we looked up to see this little guy watching us.



He looked quite young, so we quickly got everything except our glasses in the house in case his mother made a surprise appearance and we had to make a run for it. He watched us scurry around the deck and once we had sat down again, he waited another 10-15 minutes.

Not long after we saw him wander up the neighbour's stairs. The tree on the other side of the deck started shaking like mad and he reappeared there, saw us and ran back down the tree and up into his little nest.

These guys live in that tree though...we stayed far away from them!



Kelsey went home last night and Hiromi arrived...



It's balcony party time...just like summers at Pax Lodge!!!



Hiromi brought me a sparkly ring...

look at my pretty ring from Japan!

Alex *really* liked it ;)

whoa...where'd ya get that thing?